What is the Tomatometer™?

The Tomatometer rating – based on the published opinions of hundreds of film and television critics – is a trusted measurement of movie and TV programming quality for millions of moviegoers. It represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show.

From the Critics

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Fresh

The Tomatometer is 60% or higher.

Rotten

The Tomatometer is 59% or lower.

Certified Fresh

Movies and TV shows are Certified Fresh with a steady Tomatometer of 75% or higher after a set amount of reviews (80 for wide-release movies, 40 for limited-release movies, 20 for TV shows), including 5 reviews from Top Critics.

There's a difference in tapping into that same cheesiness that made up the DNA in action films of the 80s and 90s and overdoing it. The Expendables 2 gets way too carried away with that aspect and dives into overkill territory more often than not.

While it's unquestionably great to see Arnie again toting a giant gun, The Expendables 2 fails to make the most of its game cast, and most surprisingly of all, is quite lacking in the action department.

Partly a cautionary tale about the dangers of decades of bodybuilding and partly a throwback to the good old days of the Reagan era, when all you needed to make an action film was a man with muscles, an exotic setting and a hundred screaming extras ...

Whatever throwback charm the first film had has been utterly Snakes on a Plane-d by this sequel, which from the start is far more pleased with itself than audience members are ever given a chance to be.

Perhaps we're pawns in an elaborate homage to excess and macho stupidity. It's purposefully - even wilfully - bad. Given that I can't prove that Simon West isn't actually that kind of wheels-within-wheels genius, he earns benefit of my doubt.